The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-07-07
World flying from lts orbit and friu9 II

every wound, cure every trouble, emanci-
pate every slave, and ransom every ma
ton. Ye Christian men and women who
go out this afternoon to do Christian work,
as you go into the Sunday schools and
the lay preaching stations aud the peni-
tentiaries and the asylums, want you to
feel that you bear in your hand weapon,
compared with which the lightning has
no speed, and ayalanches no heft, and the
thunderbolts of heaven have no power; it
is the arrow of the omnipotent gospel.
Take careful aim. Pull the arrow clear
back until the head strikes the bow. Then
let 1t fly. And may the slain of the Lord
be many.
Again: if you want to be skillful in
spiritual hunting you must hunt in un-
frequented and secluded places. Why
does the hunter go three or four days in
the Pennsylvania forests or over Raquetts
Lake into the wilds of the Adirondacks?
1t is the only way to do. The deer are shy,
and one "bang" of the gun clears the forest.
From the California stage you see, as you
90 over the plains, here and there, a coyote
trotting along, almost within range of the
gun-someti quite within range of it.
No one cares for that; il is worthless. The
good game is hidden and secluded. Every
hunter knows that. So, many of the souls
that will be of most worth for Christ, and
of most value to the church, are secluded.
They do not come in your way. You will
have to 90 where they are. Yonder they
are down in that cellar, yonder they are up
in that garret. Far away from the door of
any church, the gospel arrow has not been
pointed at them. The tract distributor
and the city missionary sometimes Just
catch glimpse of them as hunter
through the trees gets momentary sight of
partridge or roebuck. The trouble is,
We are waiting for the game to come to US.
We are not good hunters. We are stand
ing in Sohermerhorn street, expecting that
the timid antelope will come up and eat
out of our hand. We are expecting that
the prairie fowl will light on our church
steeple. 1t is not their habit. If the
church should wait 10000, 0O0 of years for
the world to come in and be saved, it will
wait in vain. The world will not come.
What the church wants now is to lift their
feet from damRsk ottomans, and put them
in the stirrups. We want pulpit on
wheels. The church wants not so much
/; cushions as it wants saddle bags and
arrows. We have got to put aside the
gown and the kid gloves, and put on the
hunting shirt. We have been fishing SO
long in the brooks that run under the
shadow of the church that the fish know
us, and they avoid the hook and escape as
soon as We come to the bank, while yonder
is Upper Saranac and Big Tupper's Lake,
where the first swing of the gospel net
would break it for the multitude Of the
fishes. There is outside work to be done.
What is that see in the backwoods? 1t is
tent. The hunters have made a clearing
and camped out What do they care if
they have wet feet, or if they have moth
ing but pine branch for pillow or for
the northeast storm? If moose in the
darkness steps into tie lake to drink, they
hear it right away. If loon cry in the
midnight, they hear it. So in the service
OF God We have exposed work. We have
got to camp out and rough it. We are
putting all our care on the 10000 people
of Brooklyn, who, they say, come TO church,
( What are we doing for the 700, 900 that do
not come? Have they no souls? Are they
slnless that they need no pardon? Are
there no dead in their houses that they
need no comfort? Are they cut off from
God, TO go into eternity-no wing to bear
them, no light to cheer them, no welcome
to greet them? l hear to-day surging up
from the lower depths of Brooklyn groan
that comes through our Christian assem-
blages and through our Christian churches;
and it blots out all this scene from nv
eyes to-day, as by the mists of great
Niagara, for the dash and the plumape of
these great torrents of life dropped down
, into the fathomless and laundering ABYSS
OF suffering and woe. [ some lines think
that, just as God blotted out the Church
OF Thyatira and Corinth and Laodicea, be-
cause of their sloth and stolidity, he will
blot out American and English Christianity,
and raise on the ruins q stalWaTt, wide
awake missionary church, that can take
the full meaning of that command: "Go
into all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature. He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and he that be-
ieveth not shall be damned"
l remark, further, if you want to succeed
in Gospel hunting, you must have courage.
If the hunter stand with trembling hand or
shoulder that finches with fear, instead of
his taking the catamount, the catamount
takes him. What would become of the
Greenlander if, when out hunting for bear,
he should stand shivering with terror on an
iceberg? What would have become of Du
Chaillu and Livingstone in the African
thicket, with q faint heart and weak
knee! When nther comes within
twenty PAGES of you, and it hos its eyes on
spring, "Steady there"
Courage, o We spiritual hunters There
nre great monsters of iniQuity prowling
around about the community. Shall we
not in the strength of God 60 forth and
combat them? We not only need more
heart, but more backbone What is the
Church of God that it should fear to look
In the eye any transgression? There is the
Bengal tiger of drunkenness that prowls
around, and instead of attacking it, how
many of us hide under the church pew or
the communion table? There is so much
invested in it we are afraid to assault it; |
millions of dollars in barrels, in watts, in |
spigots, in corkscrews, in gin palaces with |
marble floors and Italian top tables, and
chased ice coolers, and in the strychnine, |
and the logwood, and the tarlaric acid, and
the nux vomjca, that 60 to make up our
pure" American drinks. looked with |
wondering eyes on the Heidelberg tun." |
1t is the great liquor vat Of Germany, which |
is said 10 hold $40 hogsheads of wine, and |
only three times in 100 years has it been |
filled. But, as stood and looked at it, l |
said to myself: "That is nothing-S0O |
hogsheads. Why, our American vat holds |
4,5OO,OO0 barrels of strong drinks, and we |
keep 800, 600 men with nothing to do but 10 |
see that it is filed" Oh, TO attack this |
great monster of intemperance, and the
kindred monsters of fraud and unclean-
ness, requires you to rally all your Chris
tian courage. Through the press, through |
the pulpit, through the platform, you must
assault 1t. Would to God that oil our
American Christians would band together,
not for crock Drained fanaticism, but for l
holy Christian reform. think it was in
1893 that there went ont from I,ucknow |
India, under the sovereign, the greatest
hunting party that was ever projected.
There were 10000 armed men in that hunt
ing party. There were camels, and horses,
and elephants. On some princes rode, and
royal ladies, under exquisite housings, and
500 coolies waited upon the train, and the
dasnlate lnlacaa of InIin 1uara inuadad hn |